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I hate Tristan Thorn, though I do suppose that everybody has been in his shoes at one point in their life. Everybody was young once and everybody has been naively in love with someone they barely know. I can’t blame Tristan for his natural puppyish passions, he is only seventeen after all, but I can hate him for it nonetheless; he is completely unbearable at the beginning as his love-sick foolishness knows no bounds. Indeed, when Victoria Forester, the woman he thinks he in love with, agrees to marry him if he fetches a fallen star, yes a fallen star, he childishly tries to retrieve it.

"He thought of Victoria’s lips, and her grey eyes, and the sound of her laughter. And to ignorant to be scared, too young to be awed, Tristan Thorn passed beyond the fields we know.



In doing so he does grows as a person and almost redeems himself as he sees the errors of his ways. However, he is still an oaf and a self-obsessed idiot for most of the novel, which makes him quite unbearable as a person. Indeed, when he finally encounters the star he sees nothing but his ticket to getting between Victoria’s legs; instead of the wonder that is before him because the star is a magical being that belongs in another world. She attracts a whole host of problems, with Tristan’s lust for Victoria being the least of them.

Also on route to claim the star for their own is a trio of princes, which ever one claims her earns the Kingship. Septimus, the youngest of the three, is power mad; he will stop at nothing to be the victor even if it means walking over the corpses of his fellow prince. However, a dark and more sinister threat approaches: the evil witch queen. If her and her sisters eat the heart of the star then their youth will be restored, and in doing so most of their already deadly powers too.

But, Tristan is too unbearable

I do like Gainman’s writing, and I do like the idea behind this novel; however, I found Tristan to be an awful protagonist. He is not written badly nor is he a bad person, but I just found him annoying enough to affect my enjoyment of the novel. When you hate the protagonist so much it makes the story not as fun to read, and makes you want to throw it at the wall; it becomes frustrating rather than pleasant. I mean he is so much of a love sick puppy that it made me sick. I just wanted to slap him. He really is a repulsive guy:

“We shall visit my parents. I have missed them- although Tristan had barely given his parents a second thought on his journeying’s- then we shall pay a visit to Victoria Forester.�

He just doesn’t see what’s in front of his face till the very end, and then it’s only when his first choice rejects him. Tristan doesn’t deserve the ending he gets in this book; he deserves a reality check. If Tristan was less of an idiot he would have annoyed me less and then I would have easily given this a four start rating, but alas he is a moron.